The Magician
by rallamajoop
Summary: It’s a long journey from spiritbait to Magician of Space and Time, but some things don't have to change so much in the process.


**Notes:** I've never been personally convinced by the Watanuki-inherits-the-shop theory of how xxxHOLiC will end, but it's an interesting enough idea that there's some quite decent future-fic out there based around it. What really strikes me about what I've seen of that fic, however, is just how _angsty_ so much of it is. Surely there have to be lighter ways of looking at a scenario like that.

* * *

Doumeki finds himself visiting the shop rather more often than he probably needs to these days, even despite Watanuki's complaints about having him underfoot and confusing his customers (less than half of which he really means). It isn't that Watanuki is never seen outside anymore, but Doumeki can't shake the vague superstition that if he ever leaves it too long between visits he'll come back one day to find he can no longer see anything more than an empty lot there again. Too much time around Yuuko gives you more respect for superstition than is probably healthy. 

Today is one of those horribly hot days that Yuuko always hated, and Watanuki is lounging on the back porch looking bored and irritated. He's never picked up more than a fraction of his predecessor's taste for exotic outfits, but he does his best to look the part, which isn't fun in weather like this. It's a big change after so many years of seeing Watanuki only in school uniforms and the plainest of causal clothes that an orphaned schoolboy's meager budget can afford, and privately Doumeki thinks some of those new clothes make him look like a Christmas tree. Or, not so privately, since he has said something to that effect to Watanuki before, who'd snapped back that it was for the customers' benefit, not his, and since when did he care anyway? (Doumeki hadn't gone so far as to mention that Yuuko had laughed and agreed with him last time he saw her, though she also assured him that style was something that would come with more practice.)

Watanuki looks pleased to see Doumeki at least, or pleased to see the cold drinks he's holding anyway, which he accepts gratefully. He hands Doumeki a piece of card. "Postcard from Yuuko," he explains, before taking a swig of his drink.

Doumeki takes a moment to study the picture on the front before looking at the message. From the text it's been sent from inside Japan, but… "Fairy Park? I've never heard of it."

"Of course not, it's a whole dimension away," Watanuki tells him, like this should have been the most obvious thing in the world - the default assumption when Yuuko was involved. "Yuuko's really enjoying all her new free time."

"What about you?"

Watanuki sighs and goes back to looking irritated. "New customer – a school kid this time. And I'm going to have to find an enchanted Ming dynasty Chinese vase by the end of the month or I'm going to look very unprofessional in front a customer who's going to show up at the door around then. I don't know how Yuuko dealt with it all."

"Seeing the future, you mean?" It's always oddly fascinating to see Watanuki reeling off things that haven't happened yet like this.

"Only I don't – not really _seeing_ it like that, there are just things I know have to go a certain way," Watanuki corrects him, although even his complaints have a comfortable humour to them lately. "Yuuko wasn't kidding when she said hitsuzen got into everything. She wasn't even exaggerating."

"So," Doumeki prompts him, "that new customer?"

"Oh, him. His elder sister is involved with some people who are trying amateur kinds of divination – cards and stones and that sort of stuff," Watanuki explains. "It's usually harmless, but they're taking it too seriously, and it's starting to get dangerous. But her brother doesn't have any idea what's going on, all he knows is that his sister's acting strangely and she's never home. And he thinks it's his fault."

Watanuki gives another exaggerated sigh. "It was easier back when I was the one following customers around after they left, trying to let them in on Yuuko's advice."

"You still could." Doumeki isn't sure whether he's suggesting it seriously or not.

"No good," Watanuki waves a hand. "If I give him the advice he needs straight out, he'll be back here next week with another question, and the next, until he doesn't have anything left to pay with. It'll work out this way – _he'll_ work it out, but he has to do it himself or there's no meaning to it."

He takes another drink and gives Doumeki a tired but otherwise genuine smile. "You know, it was bad enough when I just had to do the cooking and cleaning around here. Now I'm running the shop and I'm _still_ doing the housework as well. You tell me where the justice in that is supposed to be."

"The twins?"

Watanuki grimaces. "You don't want to see how their last attempt turned out."

Maru and Moro show a bit more respect now Watanuki's their official master, but they're not above causing trouble when the mood takes them, and teaching them any new tricks seems to beyond even a magician's power.

Doumeki swirls his drink thoughtfully. This topic of conversation has only gone and made him hungry. "Got any snacks?"

Watanuki's eyes slide across to his direction. "Someday," he declares, "a day will come when you will go an entire visit without once mentioning food, and when that day comes, I will mark it on my calendar and celebrate its anniversary every year."

"Is that a no?" Doumeki says innocently.

"Oh, go help yourself to something from the kitchen. It's too hot to move."

Too hot or too familiar a subject for Watanuki to get angry about it either, though that isn't always the case, even now. His moments of incoherent rage are shorter, calmer and rarer than they used to be, but they're still there, and there's something reassuring about that.

Doumeki pads his way into the kitchen. He may not be an expert, but he would guess, from the state of the room, that it is stocked with _exactly_ the amount of food Watanuki (plus customers, plus the odd passing friend) will be able to use between now and when the first items would have started to go bad. The fridge is practically categorised. Watanuki has relaxed about a lot of things since taking over the shop, but anything that happens in the kitchen has never been one of them. The bench is practically bare and spotlessly clean, although it does hold a neatly covered plate of snack food which, Doumeki is certain, is _not_ there specially for him, and even if it was, it would only be because he'd be sure to make a mess looking for it otherwise.

Yeah, some things never change.

Doumeki is on his way back, armed with snack food, when the front door opens to admit a girl in a middle school uniform. She can't be much younger than Watanuki was when he first stumbled in here, and it's a little strange to Doumeki to struck by the sudden feeling that the customers here are getting younger every year.

"Um, I don't mean to barge in," she says nervously, "but I heard this was a shop for magic. Are you…?"

"Not me," Doumeki tells her. It occurs to him that having passing friends who stop by to raid the fridge probably isn't doing the look of the shop any favours, but he decides the magician's image can survive a few hits.

"Indeed," speaks the voice of that magician, appearing as if by magic on perfect cue, "this is a shop where wishes are granted. If you've come here, you must have a wish you want granted, don't you?"

It's a performance, and Doumeki knows the script, but despite himself, he can't help being a little impressed. Watanuki was quite definitely lying down out the back not a moment before, but there's no remaining hint of the half-boiled young man in too many clothes, no suggestion of Christmas trees remaining. The words might have been Yuuko's before his, but they belong to no-one but him now.

"Um, well," says the girl, even more nervous in the magician's presence. "I do have something I…"

Doumeki heads back to the porch and leaves them to it. It's none of his business until Watanuki wants to talk about it, but Doumeki will be around if he needs to.

It's another thing he's only just getting used to – this new Watanuki, who still sees and attracts friendly spirits but has become something the unfriendly ones do well to avoid, who's as comfortable in his own skin as Yuuko ever was. It's no act and it's no façade, but it doesn't give you the full story either.

He's adjusting to this new life well overall, Doumeki reflects, probably as well as anyone starting a new job ever does, now that the inevitability of it all has become something he savors rather than resents. It's been a long journey from spirit-bait to Magician of Space and Time, but some things haven't changed so much in the process. And he may not need Doumeki around to take care of unfriendly spirits anymore, but it stands to reason that the day you find yourself with so much power that nothing will ever threaten you again is the day you'll need an understanding friend to talk to the most.


End file.
